It’s always a treat being able to celebrate the new year together as a family, and so we wanted to make sure this one started with an exclamation point. The kids love Hawaii and this trip didn’t disappoint.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Ringing in the New Year in Maui (this post)
• Good for Hilton Loyalists: A Review of the Grand Wailea
• Dining at Grand Wailea: Tasty Meals But Expensive
• Plenty of Aloha: Review of the Andaz Maui at Wailea
• Andaz Maui Dining Guide: Amazing Meals for the Family
• Maui with Kids: An Island Full of Adventure
• Where to Eat in Maui: Our Full Trip Dining Review

Reason for the trip

I booked the hotels for this trip roughly one year out. Taking the kids back to Hawaii has been on my list since they loved the last time we went (though that time was to the Big Island). With hotel bookings over a popular time, it’s best just to book whatever you can at the earliest time possible if you have the points (but please also take note of any cancelation deadlines).

We did get some concern when the devastating fires happened on the island. First and foremost, our hearts were out to all the families and businesses that would forever be changed. With the fires, we were debating whether we should still go to the island or pivot to another location. So we sat on the decision, repriced our flights (which had become much cheaper with everyone avoiding the island), and then decided to keep the trip when it seemed the island was looking for tourism to return.

Flights

I won’t have dedicated posts for the flights as it wasn’t anything special. We flew in Delta Comfort+ nonstop from LAX to OGG on December 30th. This was booked using cash at about $220 per seat. The flight going to Maui was just about perfect, with the captain making some comical banter before take off. And, no, sadly the pilots didn’t have any of the trading cards that are trending on social media.

On the way home, we flew American Airlines using 20,000 AA miles per seat plus $5.60 on January 5th. Coming back from Hawaii on the weekend after a major holiday is expensive. However, I don’t get AA’s award pricing strategy sometimes since the cash price still hovered in the $300-400 range, and the award price for the flights generally hovered around 35,000/person but about a month or so before departure, the price dipped to 20,000/person for just a couple of days before jumping back up in price. It just means you need to babysit your points reservations these days as points prices can fluctuate despite no change in cash price.

Taking Delta in one direction and American in the other gave me and the family a chance to directly compare the airlines. Service was good on both flights, with Delta taking a slight edge because of better snacks / food options and better entertainment. Baggage was surprisingly fast to come to the carousel with AA compared to what I expected, while it was slower than expected with Delta (but I was able to collect 2,500 Delta miles for the slight delay thanks to their guarantee). In the end, everything seemed to be quite even between the two on this particular trip.

Hotels

I originally thought I would spend my whole time at the Grand Wailea. I found plenty of award nights available over New Years and prospectively booked two rooms at six nights each, thinking I might find some family to come along for the ride (spoiler: we were unsuccessful). We had stayed at the Grand Wailea way back in 2013 when it was possible to book cheap Alaska Airlines first class tickets using Icelandair miles (props to you if you remember that). Anyways, back then we only stayed one night and I ended up having stuff stolen from me while we used the pool as we waited for our room to be ready. So I wanted to see how the hotel has held up over the last decade.

Shortly after booking that Grand Wailea room, I was able to find three award nights at the Andaz Maui with an available suite upgrade. So the plan then became to stay three nights at each hotel, much to Jenn’s chagrin. She didn’t want to switch hotels and thought I only wanted to do it for the blog. But really I was more just genuinely curious to see what all the hubbub was about with the Andaz. Given the Andaz is right down the road from the Grand Wailea, it was an easy sell moving between the two. Yes, they are technically walkable, but it would be a lengthy walk if you’re also bringing your luggage with you.

For both of these hotels, I’ll talk about the hotels themselves along with most of the dining options on site.

Getting around the island

We rented a car from National. A couple of years ago, they handed out free top tier Executive Elite status without any spending requirement and then they extended it a year ago if you rented at least once during the calendar year. I am not a frequent renter by any means and I’m sure my status will drop soon enough, but it’s nice just showing up and picking any car in the aisle, and not having any paperwork to fill out. It’s a much better experience than I had years ago at Advantage on Oahu, where one of the agents proceeded to laugh at me in a poor attempt to get me to upgrade to a bigger car (I didn’t). But National is overall a pretty efficient car rental company from my own experience and I might stick with them even after dropping status.

Based on the number of cars available to choose from, it doesn’t seem like there currently is a rental car shortage here, but that could also be just due to depressed desire to come to Maui.

If you’re just looking to stay at the hotel, a having a car isn’t a necessity. But Maui is big enough of an island where if you want to take a drive out to some places (like Haleakala or Hana), you’ll want to rent. Just note your resort might also have a rental facility on site, potentially saving you overnight parking charges and money on days you don’t need the car.

What we did in Maui

I plan to have several posts outlining the places we ate at and the things we did. There were several activities we would have loved to do but they were closed due to the fires. That does mean that I won’t be able to comment on quite as much as I originally wanted to do, but it also meant we had a more relaxing vacation by just staying at the resorts a bit more.

We’ll split the posts up between activities we did and restaurants we dined at. And as always, we will give our honest opinions on it all.

And thank you!

We’re always happy to share our experiences, so thanks for sticking around to read up on another fun adventure for us. Feel free to leave a comment and share your own opinions too.

Thank you!